Real Estate Lawyers Richmond Hill, Ontario

Moving to or from Richmond Hill, or just moving around the neighbourhood, finalize your next real estate transaction with a minimum of fuss and bother. Axess Law has virtual real estate lawyers Richmond Hill homeowners can call on 7 days a week. Ask for our flat fee legal rates. Axess Law is a virtual Richmond Hill real estate lawyer service.

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Real Estate Lawyer Richmond Hill

Your Axess Law flat fee real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill makes closing home purchases or sales go quicker. Using a remote Richmond Hill real estate lawyer takes just minutes out of your day. Our virtual lawyers meet with you online, anywhere you are, via home computer, tablet, laptop, or any compatible mobile device. If you’ve never used videoconferencing technology before, we show you how. 

Buying a Real Estate Property in Richmond Hill

Does your agreement of purchase and sale protect your legal interests the way it should? Your Axess Law Richmond Hill real estate lawyer reviews your offer to purchase to ensure it includes essential clauses that allow you to back out if you need to. You can sign mortgage documents by video conference, or amend contracts if you need more time to complete the sale, all for less than you would normally pay a traditional lawyer service.

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Selling a Real Estate Property in Richmond Hill

Complete your home sale on deadline with an Axess Law Richmond Hill real estate lawyer. What does a real estate lawyer do for the seller in Ontario? Your virtual real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill goes over all the details to advise you if sales contracts are problematic. We search and transfer title to your property, and discharge mortgages or construction liens that could delay your sale. Ask us about our day or evening appointments anytime you need a virtual real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill.

Refinancing a Real Estate Property in Richmond Hill

Get a new mortgage to take advantage of lower interest rates, or extend your existing mortgage to fund renovations. Your Axess Law real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill liaises with your banker, credit union, trust company, or private lender once your mortgage refinancing documents are ready to sign.

You always know what your fees will be, because we charge flat rates for all our legal services.

About Richmond Hill

En la rose, je fleuris (“like the rose, I flourish”): that’s Richmond Hill. Canada’s rose capital changed its motto to “a little north, a little nicer” in 1984, but affluent Richmond Hill is still thriving. From comedy and music at the performing arts centre to watching the night sky from the David Dunlap Observatory, Richmond Hill comes to life after hours. With 167 urban parks and the protected, glacial-age Oak Ridges Moraine to enjoy, it’s only fitting figures like environmentalist and novelist Farley Mowat are a Richmond Hill legacy.

What Our Customers Say About Us

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Sign Legal Documents by Video

Your Axess Law Richmond Hill real estate lawyer video conferences with you anywhere in Ontario. Call to talk to a real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill 7 days a week, day or evening, at your convenience. Our online video calls and remote signing services take the work out of solving legal problems. Timely legal advice and low flat rate legal services — make your appointment by dialing 647-479-4118, toll free to 1-877-552-9377, or use  our easy online booking form. Debit, cash, VISA or Mastercard accepted.

Some FAQs

You may be surprised at how economical an Axess Law real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill really is. We keep our flat rate legal fees low by providing only the real estate lawyer services you need. Call us for our current rates or a quote – we keep your expenses way down when you buy or sell a home in the Toronto area, or anywhere in Ontario. Hiring an Axess Law virtual real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill relieves you of extra charges or hidden surprises. You pay the same low flat fee rates regardless of where you are in Ontario, or if you use our virtual real estate lawyer service in Richmond Hill or drop by Axess Law’s open law offices in Greater Toronto Area or Ottawa.

Not at all. 

You can sign a client representation agreement with a real estate brokerage, amend it to suit your needs, or decline to sign. Signing protects your interests: the agreement includes start and expiry dates, services or promises the brokerage makes to you, their commission amount, and anything else you agree to. Without a signed representation agreement, a brokerage may take you on as a customer instead. 

Let’s break it down. A brokerage is legally obligated to provide clients with a written representation agreement. Accepting it gives the brokerage a fiduciary (financial) duty to discover and disclose material facts about properties you are considering, like any defects they know about or the seller discloses. Signing a customer agreement instead limits the brokerage’s, and your real estate agent’s, responsibilities to you.  

To demonstrate the difference, brokerages are obligated to pass on all offers they receive to clients. Not so to customers, who receive only those identified in their much more basic customer agreement. That may be no offers at all.  

If you decide to forego any agreement at all, get commission arrangements and deadlines in writing when you make or accept offers to purchase land or homes. 

Your Richmond Hill real estate lawyer (or property lawyer) protects your rights when you buy or sell a home, land, or income property. 

Axess Law’s virtual real estate lawyer in Richmond Hill (we have real estate lawyers near you regardless of where you live in Ontario) reviews your agreement of purchase and sale for essential clauses, like the right to walk away without penalty. We negotiate changes to terms and conditions where needed, and ensure the deal closes on time. Your Axess Law real estate lawyer puts title insurance on your property to prevent mortgage fraud, and transfers title to your name. 

A final statement of adjustments is prepared showing your deposit, property taxes or utility charges paid on your behalf, how much you owe closing day, and your total legal fees. And when the deal is done, your Axess Law Richmond real estate lawyer gives you the keys to your new home or lockbox.

Bully offers are as legally binding as any signed offer to purchase. All “bully” means is that a seller will view pre-emptive offers submitted before the deadline for multiple bid offers. 

Surprisingly to many buyers, a real estate broker’s remarks may actually invite bully offers. Those remarks are not publicly visible on MLS listings, and short of asking your own real estate agent, being blindsided by a winning bully offer can be unnerving.

Most are way over asking price or otherwise “sweeten” the deal for sellers. Therein lies the danger for you as buyer. Making an overly generous offer could require you to come up with a richer downpayment if your lender’s appraisal falls short of the mortgage amount you want or need to borrow. The same is true of firm offers that leave out conditions like a professional home inspection.

Will you be forced to live up to your written commitments in the agreement of purchase and sale? Always, and that could mean losing your entire good faith deposit if you back out — and being sued by the seller for the difference between your bully offer and what they eventually sell the property for.  

Generally yes, unless the agreement of purchase and sale states it will be returned if the seller and buyer agree to withdraw by mutual consent. In that case, a mutual consent release is standard, just as for residential sales. 

The sale gets more complicated if a commercial buyer makes an offer on behalf of a corporation, like a startup, pending incorporation. The buyer might forfeit the deposit if the incorporation falters or is terminated (Benedetto v 2453912 Ontario Inc, 2019 ONCA 149). On the other hand, some business lawyers argue a contract can’t exist if a corporation doesn’t exist to adopt it. See “Pre-Incorporation Contracts and the Court of Appeal” for that contrary opinion.

Inter vivos gifts (given during life) have their benefits. For instance, not paying probate taxes to transfer wealth after you die, and being able to actually see your beneficiaries enjoy your gifts. They also keep your finances private, instead of making family wealth part of an official probate court record.

Meeting the standard for a gift matters for income tax purposes. Talk to a tax accountant, or see this advice on taxation and inter vivos gifts or the Canada Revenue Agency website on trusts and spouses. 

More importantly, preventing estate challenges by disgruntled family members requires serious attention when you transfer wealth. Otherwise, your estate trustee may be forced to prove a favourite son didn’t unduly influence you to leave property to them, or that you were mentally capable when you gifted real estate outside of your Will.

What your beneficiary does with an inter vivos gift, including selling it, is up to them. Just be careful your transfer meets the three legal criteria for a gift: 

  1. Intentional.
  2. Accepted by your beneficiary. 
  3. Delivered or transferred to them.

For more, read “Gifting Assets Inter Vivos“. 

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